The overall objective of this proposal is to develop a reliable and reproducible methodology for the large-scale culture of large-egged octopods to create an animal resource of a highly advanced mollusc for biomedical research in the U.S. Although Octopus has been and continues to be a well-established model for biological experimentation in Europe, it has not yet been extensively studied in the Americas because (1) no octopus species occurs in large, easily fished or harvested populations along our coasts and (2) no methodology exists for culturing them on a large scale. The three species we propose to culture - Octopus joubini, Octopus briareus and Octopus maya - have all been reared in a small scale, and each is of a different size and has individual behavioral qualities that collectively make them suitable for a variety of experiments. These octopods have very high growth rates and food conversion efficiencies and can be reared to adult size in five to eight months. All three species reproduce in captivity. Specifically, we propose to expand our present small-scale rearing methodology for Octopus joubini to the large-scale culture of all three species in large-volume artificial seawater systems. Our concurrent aims are to advance the findings of previous workers by enlarging the array of live food organisms on which these species can be reared, and to investigate the feasibility of producing an artificial food ration that would reduce or eliminate dependence upon live food organisms. The waters near Galveston Island provide abundant crabs, shrimps, mysids, clams, fishes and other marine organisms that we can evaluate as food organisms for rearing octopuses.